1. Technical Field
The invention is directed to a method and apparatus for network resource access request redirection. Specifically, the invention is directed to a method and apparatus for determining a current resource identifier of a resource in a resource access request.
2. Description of Related Art
As the Internet and other wide area networks become increasingly more popular across the world, more and more businesses and people are establishing their presence on the Internet by creating Web pages and network resource locations. A user of the Internet, for example, may locate these businesses and persons by entering a location identifier, such as a universal resource locator.
The URL is an address that defines the route to a file on the World Wide Web or any other Internet facility. URLs are typed into a Web browser to access Web pages. The URL contains the protocol prefix, domain name, subdirectory names and file name of the Internet resource to which access is requested. For example, xe2x80x9chttp://www.ibm.comxe2x80x9d retrieves the home page at IBM""s Web site. The xe2x80x9chttp://xe2x80x9d is the Web protocol, and xe2x80x9cwww.ibm.comxe2x80x9d is the domain name.
If the Web page is stored in another directory, or if a Web page other than the home page is required, slashes are used to separate the names. For example, the URL xe2x80x9chttp://www.ibm.com/productsxe2x80x9d points to a product listing page on the IBM Web site.
If a required Web page is stored in a subdirectory, its name is separated by a slash. These subdirectories can be several levels deep. For example, the components of the following URL are described below:
http://www.jerids.com/clothes/shirts/formal.html
where xe2x80x9chttp://xe2x80x9d is the protocol, xe2x80x9cwww.jerids.com/xe2x80x9d is the domain name, xe2x80x9cclothes/xe2x80x9d is the subdirectory name, xe2x80x9cshirts/xe2x80x9d is another subdirectory name, and xe2x80x9cformal.htmlxe2x80x9d is the document name, i.e. the Web page.
Many times as Web sites are updated and changed, Web pages are modified, rearranged, renamed and the like. As a result, the URL of the Web page may be modified such that a user using the original URL will not be able to find the Web page without having to invoke the aid of a search engine such as Lycos(trademark) or Yahoo(trademark). This may be detrimental, for example, to Internet based businesses that rely on their customers and potential customers to be able to locate their Web pages to shop at their on-line stores.
Thus, there is a need for new technology to provide a mechanism through which network resource identifiers may be modified while allowing users of the network to request access to network resources using the original network resource identifiers.
The present invention provides a method and apparatus for determining a current resource identifier of a resource in a resource access request. With the method and apparatus of the invention, when a user device wishes to access a network resource, for example, the user device broadcasts an access request across the network. The access request includes a resource identifier. The apparatus monitors the broadcasts over the network and checks the access requests to verify that the resource identifier used in the access requests is the most current resource identifier associated with the requested resource. If the resource identifier in an access request is not the most recent resource identifier, the apparatus redirects the access request using a current resource identifier and may notify the user device of the change in the resource identifier.
The apparatus makes use of a directory server to verify the resource identifiers. The directory server includes a directory of the current resource identifiers and all previously related resource identifiers. Thus, by searching the directory, the directory server may identify a network resource by its current resource identifier even if an older resource identifier is used in a resource access request.
Once the apparatus has retrieved the current resource identifier from the directory server, the current resource identifier is used by the apparatus to redirect the access request to the intended network resource. In addition, the apparatus may return a message to the user device indicating that the resource identifier has changed and indicating the current resource identifier. This message may be output by the user device as a displayed text and/or graphical message, audio message, or the like.